The grass is growing greener at London Irish

The grass sward is up and establishing well on Pitch 1 of the new training facilities for Aviva Premiership Rugby side London Irish, currently under construction in West London by sports turf specialists MJ Abbott.

Pitch construction works at London Irish, with Pitch 1 at the top of the picture

"Pitch 1 was seeded a few weeks ago, has established well and has already developed a root depth of over 150mm", commented Nathan George, Contracts Manager for MJ Abbott. "We are now pressing on with the remainder of the project - the rubber shock pad for the artificial training surface is currently being installed on Pitch 2, Pitch 3 is almost fully re-soiled ready for seeding, and the drainage works are complete on the rest of the site. The floodlighting columns are going up now around the perimiter of the pitches and we are on schedule to get the project finished this autumn."

The scheme includes the construction of 17 new training pitches (including junior pitches) on a redundant golf course site, including a state of the art artificial pitch, drainage, irrigation, landscaping and provision of floodlighting, and will provide London Irish with a top class training facility on the doorstep of their spiritual home of Sunbury in West London.

The project is scheduled for completion later this year, with the facility being brought into use in Summer 2014.